


Joint Custody

by Star_Going_Supernova



Series: how Maddie acquired a second dad [2]
Category: Godzilla: King of The Monsters (2019)
Genre: Dadzilla, Fluff, Gen, Intelligent Godzilla, Kidnapping, Monster-Human Friendship, Post-Godzilla: King of The Monsters (2019), Protective Godzilla, there's not even enough angst to actually call it angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-11-13
Packaged: 2021-01-28 22:04:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21399373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Star_Going_Supernova/pseuds/Star_Going_Supernova
Summary: If you had told Maddie a year ago that her routine would involve biweekly outings to tour the ocean with Godzilla, she’d have laughed in your face. And yet, there she was, sitting crossed-legged on Godzilla’s head, chatting about how Monarch was pretty sure Mothra’s egg would hatch in the next month or so.
Relationships: Godzilla (Legendary | MonsterVerse) & Madison Russell
Series: how Maddie acquired a second dad [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1542760
Comments: 46
Kudos: 219





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sequel, but will mostly make sense even if you haven't read _Coping Mechanisms_ already, though that story will provide a bit of context. 
> 
> My inspiration came from a comment by MarvelKid22. Thank you for the idea, and I hope you enjoy!

Mark wished he could stop thinking about it this way, but ever since Rick made a similar joke, he hadn’t been able to get the words out of his head.

Joint custody.

Now, Mark Russell was a smart man. Intellectually, he knew that wasn’t really accurate to their situation. Logically, he knew he and he alone had any true claim to his daughter. Sheer common sense dictated he had no competition for parental rights.

So _why _then, was he trying and failing not to glare at the Titan waiting in the water while Maddie said her goodbyes. No, not goodbyes—too long-term, too permanent sounding—her _see you laters. _She’d be gone for a few days at most.

He couldn’t even claim to be worried for her safety. Over the past few months of Maddie going on regular outings with Godzilla, she’d never returned with so much as a scratch. Quite the opposite, in fact, if her stories were accurate. Anything that might endanger her even the _slightest _bit was routinely roared at, and—if said threat didn’t take the hint—chomped down on.

Maddie had thought it was hilarious when Godzilla practically tore a shark in half when it swam a little too close—and by too close, she estimated it to have been a solid fifty or sixty feet away—to where she’d been swimming. Mark had thought it was heart attack inducing.

Out of gratitude, he had managed to entirely refrain from glaring at Godzilla the next time he’d been by to pick Maddie up. And thoughts like that weren’t helping his attempts to rid his brain of the words _joint custody _in relation to his daughter and a skyscraper-sized lizard.

“Dad,” Maddie said exasperatedly, bringing him back to the present. She stood before him with her hands on her hips and a light scowl on her face. “You need to stop being jealous of Godzilla.”

“I’m not _jealous_—”

From the ocean, Godzilla rumble-huffed. Maddie tried to contain a grin. Behind him, he could hear Ilene and Rick struggling not to laugh, though Rick didn’t sound like he was trying too hard.

Mark pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. He reached out and dragged his daughter in for a hug. “I’m not jealous,” he mumbled against the top of her head. Ha, at least Godzilla couldn’t beat him in the hugs department.

She nodded seriously, but he wasn’t fooled. Her shoulders were very tellingly shaking against him.

He sighed again, as drawn out and dramatic as he could make it. “Do you have everything?” he asked instead of protesting. Because he wasn’t. Jealous. Why would he be, anyway?

“Yep!” she said, bouncing the backpack she wore. “I even double checked.” _Just for you_ went unsaid, but they both knew she never wanted to give him cause to worry for her life again.

“Thanks, kiddo.” Mark laid his arm over her shoulders as they walked to the edge of the platform, where a ladder had been installed down the side of Castle Bravo solely for this purpose. “No scaring any fishermen this time, you hear me?”

“Me?” Maddie asked, all wide-eyed and innocent. “I would never.”

Godzilla briefly dunked his head underwater, as if that would keep Mark from hearing the sound he associated with the Titan laughing.

Mark took a long last look at his daughter. She was thirteen now, though it was too easy to remember her being so much smaller and more vulnerable. “Stay safe,” he told her. “Be careful. I love you.”

She smiled up at him as she prepared to descend the ladder. “Love you, too, Dad. See you soon!”

And with that, she started climbing. He watched her slowly get farther and farther away, until she was halfway down and decided sliding was clearly the better option. He shook his head, but knew it would be useless to try and stop her.

Godzilla tilted his head just right for Maddie to hop on and scramble safely away from the water. He slowly began to turn away before pausing to roar—almost softly, for him—up at the humans waving goodbye.

It could’ve meant anything, but Mark was a smart man. He knew a look of reassurance, from one father to another.

• • • 

If you had told Maddie a year ago that her routine would involve biweekly outings to tour the ocean with Godzilla, she’d have laughed in your face. And yet, there she was, sitting crossed-legged on Godzilla’s head, chatting about how Monarch was pretty sure Mothra’s egg would hatch in the next month or so.

He rumbled periodically. If anyone else had been there, they might have joked about him trying to be part of the conversation. Maddie—though she wasn’t quite ready to admit exactly how good she was getting at recognizing particular vocalizations and pitches and the way certain sounds lilted—would have agreed, though without joking.

Dozens of trips between two creatures who couldn’t speak the other’s language made for plenty of opportunities to find creative ways to communicate. And Godzilla certainly had a way of making himself understood.

It’d been two months since her last nightmare—not counting ordinary nightmares where your brain just kind of threw weird things at you until you were sufficiently disturbed—and as always, Godzilla had been happy to hear that. She still listened to the audio recordings Dr. Stanton had given her, but that might’ve been because she was so used to them.

“I really want to be there when Mothra hatches again. It went so wrong last time, and I refuse to let them try and cage her again. No ORCA, no guns. No Jonah.” She fell silent long enough for Godzilla to chirr at her, the sound she thought of as a nudge to keep going and explain what was on her mind.

It was his version of _what’s wrong?_

“I dunno,” she said with a sigh. “I guess I just don’t really want to leave the base. I’d have to go without my dad, and there’s no telling how long it would actually be before she hatches. I could be stuck there alone for weeks!”

His twisted a little with a hum, sending his whole body rocking side-to-side.

“Too far inland,” she responded. “It’s actually pretty close to where her last egg was. It’d be a long way for you to go on foot, and then there are cities and people to take into account.”

As much as she would like for Godzilla to be there when Mothra hatched, it just wasn’t feasible.

“Dr. Chen was thinking about going…” Maddie thought out loud. “I bet Dad would let me go if she does. And I could see Dr. Ling again—she’s already there.”

Godzilla huffed his approval.

“I’ll ask when we get back,” she promised him. She tilted her head back and focused on the brisk breeze blowing through her hair from Godzilla’s speed. “Do you think we’ll reach North Carolina before noon tomorrow?”

The sound Godzilla made was very much like how a person might say, _Do you really doubt me?_

Maddie rolled her eyes and shifted onto her stomach, leaving her legs kicking lazily in the air behind her. From her backpack, she pulled out the book they’d started on their last trip. “Now where were we…” she muttered as she spread it open at the ribbon bookmark.

With only the sound of lapping waves and the soft, nearly unnoticeable rumble beneath her as background noise, Maddie cleared her throat and began to read.

• • • 

It was an eerie experience, swimming in the dark. The ocean was calm beneath the night sky, showing more stars than Maddie had ever seen before. They were truly in the middle of nowhere, only the moon around to serve as a light source. Well, that and…

Maddie sucked in a deep breath and ducked underwater. Far below her, the blue glow of Godzilla’s spines lit up the his surroundings, though he was too deep for her to see well. His tail snaked back and forth.

Resurfacing, Maddie idly tread water as she shook her hair out of her face. A few feet away, her waterproof backpack bobbed along, thanks to the modifications made to the straps and back padding to allow it to float like a lifejacket.

There was nothing and no one around as far as the eye could see. The peace and quiet—the total isolation—would be scary if it wasn’t for the knowledge of who swam beneath her, never straying far.

Maddie allowed her mind to drift, much as she herself drifted in the vast ocean. She hoped her dad wasn’t worrying about her. She wondered if Mothra would hatch as soon as the scientists observing her said. She thought about what she’d do once they reached North Carolina. It was mostly so she could use a bathroom and have a hot meal, but she planned to send a postcard to her dad just to be funny.

Something in her backpack started beeping, so she swam up to it and carefully fished out the communicator—really, it was just a fancy walkie-talkie—the base had provided her with.

Flipping a switch on the side, she pressed down the ‘talk’ button and said, “Hello?”

“Hey, kiddo,” her dad responded. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”

Maddie couldn’t help but grin. If only he knew. “Not even close, Dad. You okay?”

He sighed, and unlike the ones from before she left that morning, this one sounded genuinely tired. “Yeah, I’m fine. There was some big problem with a couple of our systems here, and we only just got it sorted out. Figured I’d check on you while I was up.”

“That sucks,” she said. “I hope it doesn’t happen again.”

“Me, too. The fire alarm was ringing for half an hour without the system detecting anything.”

Maddie winced. That must’ve gotten really annoying really quickly. She was momentarily distracted from answering when she noticed the blue glow around her getting brighter. Godzilla was heading back up.

In her silence, her dad said, “You sound really close to the water.”

“Probably ’cause I’m swimming in it.”

The communicator crackled for a second, and she laughed as he finally spluttered out, “You’re _swimming _right now?”

“Yeah! It’s really cool at night.”

A muttered curse and something that sounded like _be the death of me _were lost in the sound of Godzilla surfacing from beneath her, lifting Maddie and her backpack out of the water with a rumble.

She laughed and pressed the button. “I’m not swimming anymore, if that makes you feel any better.”

“Just promise me you’re being careful,” her dad begged.

“Always,” she said, right as Godzilla snorted.

There was a pause on the other end before, “Please tell me that sound doesn’t mean something bad.”

Maddie rolled her eyes. “It was him basically saying ‘of course she’s not, but that’s what I’m here for.’”

“You got all that from—”

“_Goodnight, _Dad.” She kept the communicator on just long enough for him to repeat it back before stashing it away again.

It was admittedly late, and she should go to sleep. But Godzilla’s spines were still glowing and the temptation to run through them was too strong. She’d left her shoes at the base, because it seemed a little rude to walk around on a Titan with sneakers on. Besides, she liked feeling the warmth that tingled through her feet when she got closer to the jagged fins.

Only when they began to dim as her five minute warning—because Godzilla had been a stickler for bedtime from the beginning—did she return to her backpack, already on the way to being dry. They went through their usual pre-sleep ritual which was mainly Godzilla slowly rotating so he was floating belly up while Maddie scrambled to keep from falling off him entirely. It had happened before.

She finally flopped down somewhere around the rise of his chest and called out, “Night, Godzilla!”

He rumbled back in what Maddie privately thought meant, _Sweet dreams_.

• • •

They did, in fact, reach North Carolina’s coast before noon. Godzilla’s chirr was particularly smug about that, but Maddie figured he deserved it for crossing hundreds of miles of ocean in less than a day, what with sleeping and all. And with a human passenger, no less.

There were a couple piers that jutted out far enough for Godzilla to swim close to without causing mass panic. Maddie slipped into the water to cross the last little distance herself.

“See you in an hour, big guy!” she called back to him as she climbed a ladder attached to the dock.

He grumbled quietly and sank out of sight while she pulled a tightly rolled beach towel out of her bag. People were always less inclined to ask questions when it looked like she was a kid who belonged on a beach. Even her wet clothes wouldn’t garner any suspicion—in the past, people would ask if her friends had thrown her in, or if she’d misstepped off one of the docks.

Maddie crossed the boardwalk, looking for somewhere quick and casual to grab food. It was easy enough to find a local restaurant with outdoor seating full of sand-covered kids. By the time she could cross lunch and a bathroom break off her To Do list, she still had twenty minutes to find and send a postcard.

She stopped beside the first rack of touristy postcards she came across, five for a dollar. _Might as well go all out,_ she thought as she picked one with a stupid joke for Dr. Stanton.

• • •

There was a lot Godzilla didn’t understand, but the things he _did _understand far outnumbered what he didn’t. Most humans were in some form of denial over how intelligent a creature like him could actually be, despite the evidence he’d graciously offered them.

Pup had figured it out pretty quickly. She’d understood him without words, and she was only getting better at it with each passing day. He was proud of her for that, and he needed to find an unmistakable way to show it. Even better if he managed it in front of Pup’s sire.

He chuckled to himself, sending a stream of bubbles rushing towards the surface. Her sire was funny. He glared and frowned but Godzilla knew it wasn’t out of fear for Pup. The humans yesterday had called him _jealous_ because he wasn’t happy that Pup liked Godzilla.

Humans were usually predictable in their reactions to him. This jealousy was new. Blind terror was most common, sometimes even overriding their flight instincts. Oh, how often those little creatures just stood and stared up at him, jaws slack and eyes wide. They were like that with most Titans, though.

Not Pup. He’d seen, even with the distance between them, the way she’d roared at the false king.

Godzilla rested on the ocean bottom near the pier where he’d dropped Pup off, senses extended. Her break was almost up, and she was never late. There were rock formations only a few hours swim away that he wanted to take her to. She liked climbing things and it was good for Pup to have confidence as she made her way through the world.

He waited patiently for a while longer, and then less patiently as his internal time-keeper kept ticking. What the humans called an hour had passed and Pup was not back.

Pup liked to play tricks and take chances, but one thing Pup never did was _not _be somewhere she was expected. She had told him about how her disappearing was one of her sire’s greatest fears, how it had already happened too many times.

A growl began to build deep in his throat. If Pup wasn’t back, then it wasn’t for any good reason. Godzilla reached out further with what he knew the curious little humans in the sea base called his Alpha Sense. It let him feel other Titans.

What they didn’t know was the effect radiation had on his Sense, or that spending so much time in his presence had left the smallest trace on Pup. It took next to no effort to find Pup’s blip.

The North Carolina town playing unknowing host to the King shook with a furious bellow as Godzilla rose up out of the water, sending its inhabitants into panic. Even humans, with their pitifully undeveloped ability to read the meaning in a Titan’s roar could hear the rage in this one.

• • • 

“Will someone explain to me why Godzilla is standing on a beach in North Carolina looking about ready to raze the entire city to the ground?” Colonel Foster demanded the moment she set foot in the control room.

“You think I’m not asking myself the same question?” Rick snapped. “He’s supposed to be with Maddie right now, but none of these reports mention anyone with her description being nearby.”

“That’s where they planned to stop,” Mark said, looking up from a silent communicator. “I don’t know what’s gone wrong. Maddie isn’t answering.”

One of the people monitoring feeds from local security cameras added, “He’s not doing anything yet. Just pacing back and forth, roaring every once in a while.”

Colonel Foster went to see for herself. “Looks like he wants to go inland. Why?”

Ilene met Mark’s eye from across the room. She grimaced apologetically but said, “If I had to guess, I would say something has happened to Maddie. He has already proven himself to be protective, and since there are no other Titans in that area…” She shrugged. “I can’t think of anything else that would provoke him like this.”

Mark leaned forward and covered his face with his hands. He didn’t want to believe it, but she was right. It made sense, especially given her track record, that Maddie was somehow involved. They just couldn’t catch a break.

“Regardless of the cause, I want a team heading out there ASAP. If he’s as pissed off as he looks, we don’t know how much longer he’ll be considerate enough to avoid causing destruction,” Colonel Foster said, nodding to Barnes.

As soon as she finished speaking, a young woman approached. “I’m sorry to interrupt, Colonel, but I have news about the malfunction last night. It wasn’t a power surge. Someone got into our systems.” She briefly made eye contact with Mark. “They accessed a number of the files we have on Maddie and Godzilla’s interactions.”

Mark shot to his feet. “We need to go. Now. _Now!_”

The urgency and anger in his voice spurred the room into action. Two Ospreys left Castle Bravo a record nine minutes later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen, I saw a comic where Godzilla called Maddie pup and I literally haven’t gotten over it since. 
> 
> I plan to post Chapter Two on Wednesday. Come visit [me on tumblr!](https://star-going-supernova.tumblr.com/)
> 
> If you liked this story, please consider leaving a kudos or comment, or if you're feeling particularly wild, both! :D


	2. Chapter 2

Maddie felt awful. Her head hurt and her throat was dry and a fog surrounded her thoughts. Her limbs ached, all pins and needles from holding still in an uncomfortable position for so long. And her whole body felt weirdly heavy.

It was with great effort that she managed to force her eyes open. It took a minute for her to process the blurry scene in front of her, but her heart sped up when it finally registered. She was curled up on her side in the back of a van, the scratchy carpet sharp beneath her cheek. Her arms and legs refused to move, and when she tried to swallow, she realized there was a bandana or something pressing roughly against the corners of her numb mouth.

The only people she could see were facing away from her. All three were unfamiliar, and try as she might, she couldn’t hear what they were talking about—though all things considered, there was a solid likelihood that their topic of hushed conversation was her.

None of them turned to check on her as she watched, and when a fourth arrived to join the person in the backseat, she closed her eyes before they could see she’d woken up.

The van rumbled to life, making her headache even worse. Maddie almost wished she was still unconscious, if only to escape the pounding in her skull.

With every passing minute, the lingering disorientation slipped away, until Maddie’s thoughts were clear again. And once that happened, she began to think.

Obviously, she’d been kidnapped. Why? She’d have to come back to that unknown. When, and how? She could just barely remember starting to feel weird after sending out the postcards she’d chosen. She’d been… grabbed? Yes, someone had latched onto her from behind and—nothing. It was all blank after that.

But who were they?

As she laid there, wondering just that, something like a switch was flipped in her head, and all thoughts of her predicament fled in the face of this new one. She’d been nearing the hour mark when they’d nabbed her, which meant Godzilla would have long since realized she wasn’t coming to meet him.

There was no possible way this could go well, not if he reacted like she was imagining he would. If a shark got chomped in half merely for existing too close to her, what would he do to humans who had deliberately hurt and taken her?

The van came to a jarring stop, and she was distracted enough for a surprised grunt to escape her. The kidnappers nearest her turned, revealing themselves to be a man and a woman, still completely unfamiliar.

“Look who’s up,” the man said, his crooked smile revealing several missing teeth. “How ya feelin’, kid?”

Maddie narrowed her eyes at him. Even if she could’ve spoken, she would’ve kept her silence. Whatever they wanted her for, she couldn’t let them get it.

The man’s grin widened. He looked like he planned to taunt her further, but the driver interrupted him to say, “We’re here.”

Because of her position, Maddie couldn’t see where _here _was, though the light coming in through the windows darkened considerably.

Her kidnappers hopped out of the van even as the doors behind her swung open. So, there were more than four people involved. She was dragged to the edge of the back, where her legs were freed. Maddie stumbled from loss of sensation when they pulled her upright into what seemed to be a warehouse, but their iron grips on her arms kept her from face-planting.

She was shoved into a chair without a word. To her surprise, they cut her hands loose and removed the gag. Looking around, it wasn’t hard to see why they were comfortable leaving her unbound—every last one of the dozen or so people in the room was armed.

Trying to act more annoyed than scared, Maddie merely glared at the two adults left to guard her while she rubbed her sore wrists. And to her surprise, it wasn’t too hard—the most powerful creature alive knew she was missing. Even if he didn’t come after her himself, Monarch would easily figure out something was wrong based on Godzilla’s likely reaction to her absence.

With that thought in mind, Maddie leaned back in her chair, the slightest of smug tilts to her mouth, and prepared to be patient. Her only job now was to keep them from their goal without giving them reason to harm her.

The two guards shared a look but didn’t speak.

That was okay. Against all appearances, Maddie wasn’t the one on borrowed time.

She didn’t know how many minutes passed as she let her mind wander, trying to ignore her lingering aches and pains. Whispers echoed strangely in the mostly empty warehouse, and people kept glancing at her. Maddie hardly noticed, too busy constructing her side of an argument with her dad about why this incident was an outlier and shouldn’t affect her outings with Godzilla.

Her main point would probably be how humans were obviously the problem here. She stifled a snort at her dad’s imagined reaction, especially if she tried to reason that this whole thing was proof she should spend _more _time hanging out with the Titan.

Godzilla would definitely get a kick outta that. She’d have to remember it.

A metal folding chair clattered down in front of her. She disinterestedly watched as one man—indistinguishable from the rest, honestly—sat down on it. He frowned at her for a long moment. Maybe he wasn’t happy with her lack of reaction.

Maddie refused to satisfy him. She remained silent and maintained eye contact.

The man broke first. “I bet you’re wondering why you’re here.”

Irritating her kidnappers probably wasn’t a good idea, but the cliché line had her struggling not to laugh. She still didn’t say anything.

“We just need a little something from you,” the man continued. “See, we were pointed in the right direction from a friend of yours. The name Alan Jonah ring a bell?”

Maddie clenched her jaw and _refused _to let anyone see how her heart had started pounding.

He paused, perhaps to see if she’d say something. “Very well. I’ll get to the point: we know you’re friendly with Godzilla. So, why don’t you tell us how you did it, and nobody has to get hurt.”

Completely unimpressed, Maddie crossed her arms over her chest. Time to stall. “Sorry, but I can’t help you.” Anger passed over the man’s face, but she didn’t let him interrupt her. “I don’t know what I did.”

“What do you mean, you don’t _know_—”

“Exactly that.”

“Look, kid, we’re not here to play games. We—”

Maddie rolled her eyes and halfway tuned him out. It was the sort of villain monologue she’d heard a dozen times in movies. They wanted some way to control Godzilla, because he was powerful and dangerous, and controlling him would give them power and influence, blah blah blah.

The real concern was that Jonah was involved, even just a little. She had no idea what to expect from him, if he was willing to encourage a group of people to kidnap her.

The man finally broke off in the middle of a sentence, something else stealing his attention. After a moment of silence, Maddie realized what he’d heard: a helicopter. She could practically feel her eyes light up as the criminals around her began to whisper.

It only took a moment for the whole room to realize they were hearing more than just _one _helicopter. Several of them raced to pack things up, even while others reasonably shouted that they didn’t have time and should run. The leader abruptly stood and yanked Maddie up by her arm.

She went without struggle as he stormed to the door. If he thought she was willing to cooperate, all the better for if she wanted to take him by surprise later.

He dragged her outside and drew a handgun. There were a lot of vehicles around the warehouse, and even Maddie was surprised by the amount closing in on them, though her reaction was to laugh a little breathlessly while the man’s fingers only tightened, pressing bruises into her skin. A few Ospreys hovered in the air while soldiers crowded around a number of trucks.

“Oh, hell,” her captor muttered. She couldn’t blame him; all this for just one teenager?

Something deep in Maddie hummed. It was a sensation she had felt before and often likened to gut instinct or simple intuition. Hers happened to alert her to one thing and one thing only, like a very particular sixth sense.

Maddie _knew _when Godzilla was close. And when she slowly turned, hoping not to draw attention to herself, it was pretty hard to miss the Titan standing directly above the warehouse. How none of them had heard him approaching, she couldn’t even begin to guess. Subtle wasn’t a word she ever thought she’d associate with Godzilla of all creatures, and yet…

Despite the distance, she knew his eyes were locked on her. There was a faint blue glow blooming from his back.

Maddie refocused on the man just as he yanked her in front of him. He probably intended to hold the gun to her head or something, but she didn’t give him the chance. Raising her foot, she brought her heel down hard against his unprotected shin. Between the pain and the surprise, he let her go.

Though Maddie probably would’ve had enough time to run forward into the safety of Monarch’s soldiers, instinct sent her in the opposite direction. Not only did that take her out of the man’s immediate sight, but it also kept her from getting in Monarch’s way.

Or at least, those were the excuses she’d use later when asked. In the moment, Maddie’s only thought was to reach Godzilla.

• • • 

Good. Pup knew right away that he was there. Godzilla zeroed in on the human dragging her around and the weapon in his other hand. He’d find himself burnt to a crisp if any harm came to Pup. The human was immensely lucky that she seemed unharmed.

The man tried to use Pup as a shield—the _coward_—but Pup kicked him into releasing her. Godzilla rumbled, pleased, when she ran towards him instead of her fellow humans. Excellent instincts.

The humans of Monarch also had decent instincts, he had to admit, when none of them immediately advanced on the yellow-bellied Pup-stealer. They knew better than to get between Godzilla and his current source of extreme ire.

When the man turned, possibly to see where Pup had gone, even Godzilla could make out the bulging of his eyes as he finally spotted the Titan. Tempting though it was to devour the trembling morsel, Pup was more important and the Monarch humans would have their own plans for this group and its leader.

Godzilla crashed down to brace himself on his forelimbs, claws gouging into dirt and concrete alike, to lower himself as close as he could to the ground. The roof of the building beneath him started to crumble as his body pressed against it; screams rang out from within the groaning walls. Gratifyingly, the man soiled himself—and Godzilla hadn’t even given him a real reason to be afraid yet.

Spines glowing ominously, Godzilla roared his rage at the pitiful little human. The man, for the record, stared up into the gaping maw, entirely too close for comfort as it was, saw the shine on the Titan’s wicked teeth, and fainted dead away.

Snorting, Godzilla twisted his head around and flopped over just the right way—setting off a mild earthquake while he was at it—and huffed at Pup. And since Pup was clever and quick, she scrambled onto his snout and up to the top of his head from there. She was smiling, and he could feel the little flutter of his radiation in her, bright and strong.

The humans stared at him as he rose back up to his full height—unbeknownst to him, the words _oddly graceful_ flashed through multiple minds—careful not to move too roughly. The looks in their eyes and the shifting of their bodies said they were in awe, but also afraid.

Good. Couldn’t have them getting complacent, now, could he? To their credit, they’d reacted quickly enough to take care of the messy human parts of this rescue.

He had his Pup, so with a final grumble at the unconscious, crumpled body of the coward, Godzilla turned and walked away.

• • • 

Maddie watched the warehouse quickly grow smaller as Godzilla’s massive stride took them farther away. She lay back and let the rocking motion settle the last of her adrenaline rush while considering the whole experience.

It couldn’t have been more than a couple hours at most since they’d grabbed her. She couldn’t even really remember how that went, and though it seemed they would have been willing to threaten her—and likely carry out those threats—she hadn’t been in the warehouse long enough for anything like that to really happen. The whole thing was, at worst, a waste of an afternoon.

Funny, how being kidnapped wasn’t even enough to really get her panicking. But then, it made sense. She had complete and total trust in Godzilla to protect her. He’d done so too many times for her to doubt him. Maddie couldn’t help but laugh quietly at how this was her life now.

The answer to how neither she nor her kidnappers had heard the slow-approaching steps of a Titan suddenly became obvious. There was a body of water larger than a river though not quite a lake stretching out before them. It curved closer to where she’d been taken than Fenway had been to the ocean. Moving slowly enough, even Godzilla would be capable of subtlety with such a short distance to travel on foot.

He descended into the water, and though it evidently wasn’t quite deep enough, it hardly stopped him from quickly swimming towards the ocean. There was a complete and utter lack of boats in the channel, something Maddie assumed Monarch had arranged.

They traveled in silence for a while, Maddie watching as the open waters of the Atlantic slowly grew closer. Anyone else might think Godzilla’s lack of vocalizations meant he was pissed off or something, especially given how talkative he was around her. She knew better. They were still too close to land and, therefore, people for him to go growling left and right. It would draw attention, might even make people panic, and no matter what some people thought, Godzilla didn’t have it out for the human species.

Finally, they passed through the opening to the channel, immediately allowing Godzilla to sink to his preferred depth. He rumbled at her as soon as he deemed them clear.

Flipping over to her stomach, Maddie rested her cheek on her folded arms. “Thanks for coming to get me, big guy.” She only hesitated for a moment before admitting, “I wasn’t even scared, y’know. With how close it was to when I was supposed to come back, there was no way you wouldn’t be right behind them.”

Their friendship had sparked a dangerous sense of invulnerability in her.

Godzilla lifted his head enough to roar, all triumph and pride. It probably wouldn’t help how he acted around Maddie’s dad, but that was for Future Maddie to deal with.

“You went easy on them,” she said once he was done. “You looked about ready to fry that one guy.”

His answering growl shook his whole body. Maddie figured the man was lucky for not having the time to carry out any threats.

It was weird to think how something that’d had so much potential to go very, very wrong would probably be forgotten—by her, at least—by the end of the week. Her dad, on the other hand… well, if he got to be too overprotective, she’d give those arguments she’d thought up earlier a try. Godzilla was a bit of a wild card. Would he let her go ashore on their next outing? Maybe if she promised not to leave the beach area, so he could see her from the water.

Since nothing had really happened, Maddie imagined Monarch’s personnel wouldn’t linger on her kidnapping for long. If anything, Godzilla’s behavior would dominate their attention. Between his reaction to her disappearance—which must’ve been attention-grabbing—to his actions at the warehouse, it was all new stuff for them to analyze to death.

Especially since he’d restrained himself from blasting that guy with his atomic breath, whether it was because it wouldn’t have been safe with so many humans around, because he didn’t want to deal with the fallout, or because he wanted to get Maddie out of there with minimal trauma.

Maddie smiled. Today was the second time someone had been on the verge of killing someone for her. She couldn’t wait to see the look on her dad’s face when she brought up yet another similarity between him and Godzilla.

And while she was at it, maybe she could print out some papers on joint custody and leave them where he was sure to find them. He’d probably think it was Dr. Stanton’s doing, since he was the most vocal about the joke.

Her smile softened and her eyelids drooped as she shifted her arms away to press her cheek directly against Godzilla’s skin. A hum not unlike her own buzzed through him, less heard and more felt. The day’s excitement finally caught up to her, and with the King’s warmth relaxing the lingering aches in her body, Maddie drifted off to sleep with rumbles both audible and not playing the perfect lullaby.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed, I really appreciate kudos and comments! Hearing what you guys liked best often gives me good ideas for future stories. 
> 
> If you have a request, want updates on WIPs, or just want to talk, [come visit me on tumblr!](https://star-going-supernova.tumblr.com/)


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